Computing devices typically use user input to perform desired computing tasks. User input can be supplied in various forms. Typically, user input comes either in the form of characters such as, for example, letters, numbers or other characters entered by typing on a keyboard, or in the form of touch input gestures such as, for example, scrolling cursor movements, clicks and other gestures entered by touching a trackpad, moving a mouse, or interacting with another touch- or motion-sensitive device or area.
Computing devices often include at least two distinct means of gathering these two primary forms of user input: For example, a portable computer may include both a keyboard and a trackpad, in addition to its display, processor and other hardware. The keyboard is configured for character entry and to perform shortcut commands via keystroke. The trackpad is configured to control cursor movement, and for scrolling, selecting items, and inputting other control gestures. Other touch devices, such as an external mouse, can in some cases be connected to the computer to duplicate or to supplement trackpad function; however, it may be typical to interact with portable computers primarily via the included trackpad.
Computers, particularly portable computing devices, have decreased dramatically in size in recent years. As such, space is at a premium and efficient allocation of space on device surfaces is increasingly important.
To operate software on a portable computer, a user generally interacts with both the keyboard and the trackpad. Normal typing on the keyboard typically occupies both of the user's hands, and using the trackpad requires the use of at least one hand.
The keyboard includes a plurality of keys, representing letters (e.g., Q, W, E, R, T, Y), numbers (e.g., 1, 2, 3), characters and symbols (e.g., Space, #, $, %) and functions (e.g. Ctrl, Esc, Shift). The spacebar key is typically positioned at the bottom center of the keyboard area, and its normal function during typing is to insert a blank space character, for example, to delineate boundaries between words.
The trackpad is a touch-sensitive surface on which the user can enter input. For example, depending on the computing context, the user may tap one or more fingertips on the surface of the trackpad, or place one or more fingertips on the surface and drag them in a particular pattern. The trackpad also may have separate buttons duplicating the clickable buttons on a mouse, or it may be clickable anywhere on its surface, or both. Other names for the trackpad include, for example, the touchpad, the track pad, and the touch pad.
Many computing applications may require the user to use both the keyboard and the trackpad, often switching rapidly between them. For example, in a word processing application, the user may type to enter text using the keyboard, and then wish to insert text into an earlier passage in the document. Using the trackpad, the user could scroll the cursor to the desired location in the document and click to position the cursor. The user could then switch to the keyboard and type the desired text, before scrolling back to the original position using the trackpad, clicking, and continuing to type. Such parallel use of trackpad and keyboard is common in many computing applications, such as, for example, web browsing, spreadsheets, word processing, e-mail programs, presentation managers, and photo and video editing software.